


too young to be singing the blues

by townieclownie



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: What's new, aj won't shut up, also maybe arachnophobia tw?, clem gets sad, disclaimer that the lullaby recited isn't mine, this is post season 2 btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/townieclownie/pseuds/townieclownie
Summary: "...is it normal to forget what your parents look like?"She looked down and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting with a knot in her stomach for his belittlement, for him to set in stone all the things she already hated about herself.-Clementine comes to a horrific realization.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	too young to be singing the blues

**Author's Note:**

> if you know both songs from this, you're a real one and i might just have to marry you

"Y'know, even my Duck didn't cry this much when he was tired."

Clementine didn't reply, still trying to figure out how to muffle AJ's cries in an uncruel, un-suffocating way. Admittedly, she was starting to feel frustrated and a little hopeless. The little booger wouldn't sleep, nor would he let her sit down. His tired fussing would die down, he'd fall asleep for a few minutes, but the moment she took a seat on the ground, he'd stir and then start up again.

"Why don't you sing to him?"

Clementine shrugged. For one thing, she didn't have an exceptionally good voice. It was good only for absentmindedly humming to herself when she was busy or alone, and for singing the Months of the Year song in kindergarten when nobody could hear her because it was in unison with the other twenty-two kids in her class, all singing more loudly than her.

Not just that, but it would just be failed attempt #1,427 (more or less) at getting to AJ to fall _and stay_ asleep. She was sure Kenny knew that - he'd been raising him just as long as she had, after all, and he knew what trials and tribulations it took to put AJ to sleep and to not accidentally wake him up. Maybe he'd just suggested it to make himself feel like he was helping out.

Either way, AJ's wails were becoming grating, and so Clementine racked her brain for any song that could be considered a lullaby, before one she still somehow remembered all the words to popped into her head.

_Don't be a worry baby,_

_No need to hurry, baby_

_When you're with me._

_Don't run way up ahead,_

_Take the long way instead,_

_There's lots to see_

_When you slow down to listen,_

_And you won't go-a missin'_

_Chances to play._

_We'll always have tomorrow,_

_No need to let it borrow_

_Time from today._

_So don't be a worry baby,_

_No need to hurry, baby,_

_When you're with me._

_Just take it easy-peasy,_

_My little lemon squeezy,_

_You're always with me._

Once again, but not much to either of their relief, AJ's eyes shut, and he drifted off.

"Wanna try laying him down in the car?" Kenny asked.

Clementine shook her head. "Not yet - he might not be asleep all the way."

"Fair enough." 

Their talking didn't seem to disturb the sleeping infant, and so Clementine decided to make her next move.

She sunk slowly to her knees, watching AJ's expression closely for a tiny flinch or any sign of him waking up.

Then came that nightly miracle - when the one holding AJ could lie back and relax. _Finally._

She sighed nasally the moment her back rested against the log.

"That was real nice," Kenny commented softly. The fact that he'd been listening closely enough to make any such judgement made Clementine's face heat up. "Your parents used to sing that to you?"

"No," she whispered. "Omid and I wrote it."

It was a little lullaby they'd written a long time ago, when Christa was asleep. He'd wanted it to be a special surprise, a little gift to both Christa and their soon-to-be-born baby. He'd had her take out a piece of paper and a crayon to write it down, and somehow, the two succeeded in writing a lullaby for Omid Jr/Omid the Second/Christa/Genevieve before Christa (the first) woke up. Every night following that lullaby's composition, he'd set a hand on Christa's stomach, and sing (with ten-year-old Clementine joining in only sometimes, when she was feeling a little more chipper).

"He wrote most of it, but I wrote the last verse." Omid had always told her that the last verse was the best part.

"That's sweet," Kenny said, his voice just a tad louder than a whisper. 

Clementine only smiled. It _was_ sweet. It had been sweet to be part of a little family. She had a little family _now_ , of course, but back then, it was still just setting in how fragile families, and people in general, were nowadays. How quickly it could all be taken away. She'd had a tiny inkling of hope back then. 

Now it always just felt like a waiting game. When was somebody going to snap? When was some asshole with more weapons than them going to threaten one of their lives in exchange for what little water or canned goods they had left?

Before everything, being robbed or having a brush with death seemed just as commonplace as finding a tarantula in your bathtub. Something that seemed scary and that you _absolutely would not want_ happening to you, but you knew wasn't likely to happen anyway.

Now they were things you had to _expect_ and _plan ahead for._

She'd much rather have to face a bathtub tarantula head-on now than to live another day in a world like this. 

She'd destroy the little bastard with her bare hands and _eat_ it if it meant going home to her parents - back to her bedroom with the light-purple walls and the loft bed with the little easel and a plastic, chest-high bookcase underneath; back to those safe, ordinarily boring school days; back to her weird friends who talked about superheroes too much and had nasty-smelling tuna-sandwich breath; back to the mean girls from school who'd whisper about her and try to touch her hair. 

Those pet peeves didn't matter now. She'd deal with them a thousand - no, a _million_ times over now just to feel her parents hug her.

"My mom used to sing this song to me when I was _really_ young," she thought aloud. "It went sorta like…

"When are you-"

Those three words at the very beginning were what she could remember. Those three words, and those three words _only._ _How pitiful is that?_ she thought to herself. 

She thought she'd be able to remember more, at _least_ a verse and the chorus. She could still see the images that came to her mind when she'd close her eyes, calmed by her mother stroking the bridge of her nose. Something about a farm, a present to be opened, a boy too young to do _something? -_ an owl, a black frog (she'd never seen a black frog in her life, but the song suggested their existence, and she'd never once questioned it). Beyond the…

She resorted to recalling the way it sounded in her mother's voice, 

until she realized she couldn't.

Why couldn't she remember? _Why couldn't she remember the sound of her own mother's voice?_

Why could she remember every single word to a silly little lullaby she'd only been singing for a few _weeks,_ and not a lullaby sang to her by the person who _gave birth_ to her and _raised_ her and _sang_ to her for _years?_

Was it because it was a little more recent? Was it because she'd written it down (with Omid helping her spell the difficult words, like _ahead, instead, listen, chances,_ and _tomorrow_ ), and therefore engrained it into her memory? Was it-

"Forget the words?" Kenny asked.

She could only muster a nod.

She tried and tried to conjure up images in her mind of her parents, but she could only see outlines. Figures without faces. A ghost _maybe_ resembling her dad picking her up and dancing her around the living room. An entity _quite possibly_ resembling her mom brewing a pot of coffee. 

Two silhouettes pressing the empty spaces where their faces would be together, in what was _probably_ a kiss.

The harder she tried, the blurrier they looked. 

It was completely, totally futile.

"What's on your mind, darlin'?"

Of _course_ he had to notice. Of _course_ he'd be able to read her like a book, rather than just ignore it and leave it on the shelf. 

She wished it was simpler - something she or he could easily fix with some basic reasoning and talking out.

But this - _this -_ wasn't something like that.

This was the cursed little jinx who got people killed, now forgetting what her parents looked like. Her own _parents._

What was the _matter_ with her? Why was she so twisted and stupid in the head, so weak and needy and incompetent and just so, so… _wrong?_

It was one of those things she didn't want to tell him. He always had _something_ to say about anything and _everything._ Too many opinions, too much criticism. So much, in fact, that she hated when he asked her for favors, or for _her_ opinion on something. She was fed-up and afraid of his criticism, and for what argument might ensue.

So she could only wonder, _what_ in the world would he have to say about _this_? 

But he kept watching her, likely expecting her to tell him. 

She was tempted to, only by the possibility that after Kenny, - god forbid there ever _had_ to be an "after" - she'd have nobody else to talk to about it.

She pulled AJ a little closer to herself, as if somehow _he_ could shield her from whatever Kenny was about to tell her about how horrible it was to forget your parents and _what in the hell is wrong with you?!_

"Is it…" She looked at his face, for any sign that he might be annoyed or upset with her already. But it was just the face of the _nice_ Kenny, the one who always assured her, as the bad times came to their conclusion, that he still loved her and wanted the best for her and for AJ. So she continued.

"...is it normal to forget what your parents look like?"

She looked down and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting with a knot in her stomach for his belittlement, for him to set in stone all the things she already hated about herself.

Then he simply sighed, "Yep."

She opened her eyes, but didn't look up. 

"It's a lot more common to forget what people look like now, since we don't got photo albums sittin' up in the attic anymore."

She let herself look up at this time, realizing he was being totally genuine.

"Now we've just got our memories to rely on, and those don't last forever. They've got a sell-by date too, believe it or not." He snorted at his own joke, and she responded with only a tiny smile. "I'm willing to bet that everybody we've ever met don't remember what _their_ folks look like. Hell, I haven't been able to remember mine for _years."_

"Well, _yeah,_ but you're…" She stopped.

"What? 'Old?'" When she didn't deny it, he grinned. "What's that s'posed to mean? You think my mind's already goin'? Why, I'm _wounded,_ Clem."

" _No,_ I didn't mean-"

"I'm only teasin' you," he said, reaching over to smack her gently near her shoulder blade. She instinctively looked down to ensure the sudden jolt hadn't woken the baby. It hadn't, but Kenny still added a hasty, "Sorry." And then, "Look, I know it's not easy, especially for someone so young. But it happens to all of us. 'S like… every day we don't see somebody, we forget a little detail of their face. You only have so many days before all the details are just… gone. And they stay gone until you get ta see that person or a picture of 'em again. Make sense?"

She nodded. When he put it that way, it _did_ make sense. So much sense, that she found herself wanting to ask him if he remembered what Katjaa and Duck looked like.

Of course, she wasn't about to put him through that. Especially when he'd just put her self-degrading thoughts to rest for right now. She could _maybe_ forgive herself. Even if she couldn't remember what they looked or sounded like, she could still remember how much she loved them, and how much she missed them every single day. She _supposed_ that's what really counted.

But it made her bitter to the fact that she remembered more things that she _didn't_ want to remember than things she _wanted to_ and really _should_ remember.

She couldn't remember what she ate for breakfast the morning before everything went bad, but she could remember what that man, whom she realized now had been a walker, stumbling around on their lawn looked like. She couldn't remember who won that last game of Candyland, but she could remember the way Sandra's cold, dead hand felt around her arm before she hollered, violently pulled away, and fled out the back door. She couldn't remember that game Ben had taught them, with the chalk triangle and the pile of rocks, that Duck was never very good at, but she could remember what Duck looked like as he was carried off into the woods in his final moments.

She couldn't remember what her parents looked like, but she remembered the sickening mix of terror, sorrow, and dread she felt when she saw them as walkers.

Memories were stupid little things. They could manifest themselves however they wanted and disappear as they pleased. 

"I think he's out for the next few hours."

Clementine looked down at AJ. His little mouth was part way open, he was snoring, and he seemed totally relaxed.

Kenny stood, and bent down next to her.

"Come 'ere, little guy," Kenny whispered almost inaudibly.

Unfortunately, he'd been wrong.

As soon as Kenny took him, AJ opened his eyes, and began to cry once more.

Both of them sighed.

"Why don't you go lie down in the car, hon?"

"I'm fine, I'll take AJ."

"No, no." He adjusted AJ so he was holding him vertically. "Go ahead and get to bed. You need your beauty sleep."

She knew protesting would be of no use.

"Thanks, Kenny."

She wrapped one arm around him in a side-hug, and then gave AJ a little kiss on the cheek. 

"Goodnight," she told them.

"Sleep tight," he replied, and then gave her that cocky _I'm about to say something that I find so irrefutably clever_ face. "Don't let a walker bite."


End file.
